


Your Heart On The Line

by twriting



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Female Clark Kent, because apparently i am incapable of not writing a rule 63 fic, compressed timeline: Batman has been in operation for ten years not twenty, i'm only writing this to get the taste of BvS out of my brain, not part of any other series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22996699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twriting/pseuds/twriting
Summary: Even injured, thinking two steps ahead is what he does. What he should do. What he failed to do until now. The obvious step-by-step logic of it restores a bit of his balance. Batman kills Superwoman with the stolen xenomineral, Luthor kills Batman and reclaims the kryptonite. Superwoman kills Batman, Luthor kills Superwoman... How?Superwoman steps back as Batman brings himself up to face her. "I'll rescue the hostage. You need to deal with whatever else Luthor is preparing. Whatever he has for backup." Doubt clouds her face. "I promise you, your mother won't die tonight."*Or: The Rule 63 of Batman v Superman no one asked for. Because at this point I seem to be incapable of writing Supes as anything but a woman.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Comments: 23
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

But it was not your fault but mine  
And it was your heart on the line  
I really fucked it up this time  
Didn't I, my dear?

* * *

" _Go upstairs and socialize. Some young lady from Metropolis will make you honest_."

* * *

Lex Luthor's speech to his guests isn't even coherent enough to be disjointed. It doesn't so much end as fall apart. Bruce Wayne wonders if Alfred is right about Luthor going off his medications.

Whether he's ill or not, Luthor has information Bruce needs. And the drive he attached to Luthor's network needs time to work. Time to play rich fool.

Working his way through the crowd he sees targets - A staffer from the governor's office, someone he recognizes from Stagg International - no potential allies, and a few useful pieces of social camouflage. One in particular, a tall woman in low heels that put her at a solid six feet. In profile her jaw is firm, softened by her mess of short raven-black curls. Her simple dark business suit doesn't entirely hide the toned body of a fitness model. Striking. A useful distraction.

He takes a path through the crowd that carries him in her direction, without making it too obvious where he's going. Nodding at other guests as he goes, he considers approaches and lines. It turns out he doesn't need to bother. The woman steps towards him, calling his name.

"Mr Wayne." Behind her thick glasses her eyes are sky blue. Her lenses have little correction, but they are treated with some sort of film, a strong filter. She seems familiar somehow, but he can't place her. "Clarke Kent, Daily Planet."

Bruce looks Clarke Kent up and down, not bothering to be subtle. A reporter. Well, she can still be useful. He lets his gaze wander off to a tall woman in a red dress striding through the crowd. In a distracted voice he says "Oh, my foundation has already issued a statement in support of books."

Kent frowns in confusion. "Sorry?"

The woman in red is distracting. He doesn't need to fake that. As she leaves the room he turns his attention back to the reporter Kent. "Wow. Pretty girl. Bad habit. Don't quote me, okay?"

The frown softens a bit but Kent stays on target. "What's your position on the bat-vigilante in Gotham?"

This woman takes her job too seriously. He'd expected a follow-up about his foundation, about the event, maybe something about literacy rates and STEM opportunities. Bruce stalls. "Daily Planet? Do I own this one, or is that the other guy?"

It doesn't throw her off. "Civil liberties are being trampled on in your city, good people living in fear."

Not quite rolling his eyes, Bruce looks around the room for another conversation he can join. All of the groups nearby look a little too tight. "Don't believe everything you hear, darling."

The set to her jaw hardens. Somehow it makes her look even more familiar to him, but he can't bring up the specific memory. "I've seen it, Mister Wayne. He thinks he's above the law."

Seen what? The ten years of work to break the mob in Gotham, break its iron grip on the city's bureaucracy? "The Daily Planet criticizing those who think they're above the law is a little hypocritical, wouldn't you say? Considering every time your hero saves a cat out of a tree, you write a puff piece editorial about an alien who, if she wanted to, could burn the whole place down. There wouldn't be a damn thing we could to stop it."

She seems genuinely distressed by his answer. Her dark curls bounce as she shakes her head. "Most of the world doesn't share your opinion, Mr. Wayne."

"Maybe it's the Gotham City in me. We just have a bad history with freaks dressed like clowns."

A voice cuts the woman off before she can reply. " _Hello!_ " Lex Luthor. Excited, bubbly, grinning from ear to ear. "Bruce Wayne meets... Clarke Kent! I love it! I love bringing people together! How are we?"

Handshakes and greetings all around. Luthor doesn't seem to have actually met his reporter guest. Confirms she was invited by the event planner as filler. He shakes her hand enthusiastically. "Hello, yes, it is a pleasure - Wow! That is a good grip! You should not pick a fight with this woman, huh?"

Luthor chatters at Bruce for a bit - Welcome to Metropolis, partnerships, R&D. There's a brittle edge to his performance, manic. His assistant drifts over to the group.

" _Seven minutes_ ," Alfred reports through Bruce's earpiece. They'd estimated five for the data. " _It looks like the transfer is complete, sir_."

Still frowning, Kent looks at Bruce. She glances at his left ear. She can't have heard the report, but she might have picked up a bit of sound. A dangerously alert person.

The assistant whispers to Luthor. His face becomes a parody of surprise. Alfred is right. Luthor is clearly unwell. "Excuse me. The governor!"

"Next time," Bruce says easily. "Call me, we'll set something up."

Time to break away from the woman. She's served her purpose for the night, and she's too damn sharp to keep by his side. "Ms Clarke, I'm always willing to talk to the media. I have business to take care of right now, but we could finish the conversation later, say back at my suite."

He regrets the words as soon as they're out. There were better ways to do this. She draws a deep breath and squares her shoulders. Instead of delivering the slap he expects, she wheels around on the balls of her feet and walks away.

" _Sir, you've overplayed your role_." Alfred's probably right. He usually is. He watches Clarke Kent stomp towards the doors, the tension in her back radiating anger. There's rich fool, and then there's rich asshole. Bruce Wayne just crossed that line.

Hopefully everything else goes according to plan.

* * *

* * *

She's just going to wait out the barrage. Bullets bounce and ricochet harmlessly off her, with no more effect than the night's rain. A solid thirty seconds of machine gun fire does nothing but create heaps of litter.

Batman loads the grenade and closes the ammunition chamber. He'll get one shot at this, literally. If it doesn't work Superwoman will tear him apart with her bare hands. Dying in a back alley isn't in his plans.

The machine-stutter of the barrage ends, one emplacement after another running out of ammunition. As she stalks forward, glowering at him, he raises the grenade launcher.

"Bruce, listen to me. Lex Luthor - "

A squeeze of the trigger launches the grenade at her face. Superwoman catches it effortlessly. "Luthor - "

Luminous green haze strangles the words in her throat.

* * *

The fight went well for about two minutes, though she'd refused to die. Even poisoned by the xenomineral she'd been horrifically tough. Now with it wearing off...

"Luthor's going to kill his hostage soon. But I guess lives aren't something that matters to you."

 _Hostage_. The word pins itself in his brain. His chestplate peels open and rain runs in. With one last yank Superman wrenches it free of the rest of the armour and tosses it across the parking lot. "Sociopath," she hisses, pinning him against the ticket machine. "Branding people, sending them off to be murdered. Slaughtering people in the street."

The world spins and he realizes he's flying through the air. The dark surface of the parking lot comes up and he barely manages to turn the fall into a shoulder roll. The hard landing feels like being beaten with baseball bats, but he's almost sure nothing is broken. He rolls across the asphalt, broken armour grinding and clanking. His roll ends face first in a dirty puddle. Pushing himself up, he realizes he's too late. She's already next to him.

"I came to you for help and you tried to murder me." Her foot draws back and he braces himself for a kick. It doesn't come. She sets her foot flat. "Luthor has my mother hostage. He gave me an hour to kill you, and so help me I don't see why I shouldn't." He hears her draw a deep breath. "She's losing time. My mother needs me."

He pushes back up to all fours, oily water running off him. "Wait."

Even injured, thinking two steps ahead is what he does. What he should do. What he failed to do until now. The obvious step-by-step logic of it restores a bit of his balance. Batman kills Superwoman with the stolen xenomineral, Luthor kills Batman and reclaims the kryptonite. Superwoman kills Batman, Luthor kills Superwoman... How?

Superwoman steps back as Batman brings himself up to face her. "I'll rescue the hostage. You need to deal with whatever else Luthor is preparing. Whatever he has for backup." Doubt clouds her face. "I promise you, your mother won't die tonight."

She's looking for the trap. He can see her struggle with it, arguing with herself. Finally Superwoman nods. "All right."

She doesn't trust him. But she has no choice.

* * *

* * *

  
Whatever that lasso is made out of, it's the only thing that seems to hold the creature. Superwoman and this new woman, the one with the almost-Greek accent, hold the glowing rope and keep the creature pinned. Batman can hear them yelling but he can't make out the words. Too far away.

With the creature down, Batman takes aim. Two grenades left. The first one catches the creature in the chest and the glowing emerald haze snuffs out the angry fire under its flesh. Batman reloads, aims again, and the final grenade catches the thing in the face. Superwoman and the other drag the creature down to one knee.

Tossing the launcher aside he grabs the kryptonite spear and runs. Hurtling half a wrecked car sends lightning-shocks of pain through his back and the smoke burns his lungs. Debris slows him, he's sure he wrenches a knee, but he can't afford to trip and he can't afford to slow down. Superwoman recovered in a matter of minutes. How long for this thing to be back on its feet?

He's there. Batman bends into his jump, ignoring the white hot pain in his knee and back and shoulder, and leaps up to brace himself on the thing's leg. He thrusts the spear up as hard as he can, shoving it into the soft meat under the creature's jaw.

Like cutting dense rubber, the flesh barely parts. Through his gauntlets he feels the scrape of the spearhead against bone. A harsh gurgling roar gets caught in the creature's throat and it's head spasms. Batman barely manages to hold his grip on the spear. He's pushing, trying to shove the spear up into the creature's brain, pushing so hard his shoulders burn, but the bone won't break. The creature pulls its shoulder back, draws back its ruined right hand, and Batman realizes he's going to die.

It draws back the stump, ready to bring the bone spur around to gut him, and Batman pushes harder. He won't fail in this. Pushing with his legs and back, howling at the pain in his shoulder, he scrapes the spear hard against the roof of the creature's mouth and braces himself for death. The creature tenses and he knows it's time to die.

There's a blur and Superwoman is there, hand on the spear, but before she can push a gore-red spur erupts through her chest. It rips through her emblem and the bloodstained tip stops just short of Batman's solar plexus. For a second she looks shocked, too stunned to move, and then her expression hardens and she shoves the spear up into the creature's brain.

Batman feels it shudder, then start to go limp. The creature sags. Still looking more shocked than anything else Superwoman looks at him as if to speak, and then she shudders just like the creature and a bubble of blood bursts out of her mouth and sprays gore down her chin.

And then she and Luthor's creature are collapsing and Batman just manages to throw himself clear before he's trapped under it. He hits hard, smashing the wind out of him and slamming that ruined shoulder against the ground. For a second his vision goes brilliant white with pain.

He's crawling, somehow, across the rubble towards her. He doesn't know when or how he managed to move but he's dragging himself across broken concrete. The creature is slumped over on its side, body limp, Superwoman half pinned beneath it. That spur juts out through her chest, impaling her right through where her heart used to be. Batman drags himself to her and her eyes are the only thing that moves, from the spur to the creature and then finally her gaze settles on him.

One final cruelty, he realizes too late. The muscles around her eyes relax, the pain and confusion run out of her expression, and her face goes slack. One final cruelty from him, that the last thing she sees is the man who tried to kill her.

* * *

* * *

A state funeral for Superwoman. The hypocrisy of it burns a hole in his heart. Like the world hadn't witnessed the United States government try to kill her with a nuclear weapon.

The only way it could possibly be worse would be if they'd poisoned and beaten her, sent her off into battle wounded, and then shown up at her funeral disguised as a mourner.

Like he hadn't gotten exactly what he had wanted.

Like he doesn't deserve this empty hole where his heart used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently made the mistake of rewatching parts of Batman v Superman, a movie I absolutely despise. Unfortunately the distaste I felt towards that movie started to taint everything I tried to write in my own series. So I decided to try to write out the things that bothered me the most, to get them out of my system.
> 
> There are a lot of obvious changes in the story. A not so obvious change is that I've compressed the timeline. Batman has been active for about ten years, and is 32 years old. Clarke has been travelling and doing freelance journalism for about five, following the death of her father, and is 23. I've done this because the idea that Clark spent FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS moping around and ignoring people in need, such as women being sexually assaulted, slightly annoys me.


	2. Chapter 2

Her family buried Clarke Kent in a gingham summer dress and blue sweater her best friend had knitted for her in high school. Diana had possessed the forethought to dress Superwoman in her Kryptonian clothes before lowering her into the fluid. Clarke bursting through the compound's roof and hovering in plain view of the entire city would have made an utter shambles of the work of the past few months, the work of carefully separating her legal and public identities.

Even with the military compound's weak security it takes a minute to escape, to get to the edge of the park. Superwoman hasn't gone far in that time. Watching through binoculars Batman sees her standing on the monument's platform, next to the remains of her statue. The city is still debating what to do with it. _She hated that thing_ , Martha Kent had told him. _Called it grotesque, putting a statue of her right in front of the names of all the people she couldn't help_.

Her face is pale and even through binoculars her eyes look dark. Pupils must be dilated. Her nostrils flare with each short breath. She presses her shaking hand to the gap in her House glyph, where Luthor's creature had impaled her.

The new League keeps its distance, at the ring of police cars around the monument. Batman stays even further back, away from the rest of the League. He crouches low behind a police car at the edge of the park, watching Superwoman try to make sense of the world around her. Activating his cowl's comm system he tells Alfred to send Lane up.

Across the park, Superwoman turns at the sound of his voice. That's not good. Maybe Diana can talk - 

Superwoman does that thing Kryptonians do, where they move so fast it's like perspective has broken. The police car shudders in the sudden blast of wind and she is right there across from him. "You."

The situation has moved past _not good_. He stands slowly, as the cops crouch down low in their seats. Leaving the binoculars on the trunk of the car he raises his hands away from his body, keeping them open. "Clarke - "

She blurs again. Her face is too close to his now. Pupils wide, breathing too shallow and too fast. "You won't let me live." Confused. Angry. Riding an adrenaline high. Her hand closes around his neck, under his jaw. When she lifts him only the brace built into his suit's neck and shoulders protects him from dislocated vertebrae. Her expression twists to a snarl. "You won't let me die."

Behind him he hears Diana call out to _Kal-El_. Clarke's expression hardens.

It's not easy to speak, but he forces the words out past her grip. "The world needs you."

"Maybe." She looks down, to his bat emblem. "Does it need you?"

He knows the answer to that. Ten years in Gotham, for what?

Her fingers shift, tightening around his throat. Constricting his artery and windpipe. He can hear the dense materials of his suit's collar complain at the pressure. "Tell me. Do you bleed?"

 _Fuck_.

"Clarke." Lois Lane's voice. Her hand reaches out, grips Clarke's shoulder. "He's not here to hurt you."

She draws a deep shaky breath, then tosses Batman aside. He hits the sidewalk hard, knocking what's left of the breath from him. Lois Lane pulls Superwoman into an embrace, makes soothing noises at her. Batman stays down until Superwoman wraps her arms around Lane and flies away.

"So. Um." The Flash kneels next to Batman. "You two have a history, huh? That's... cool, I guess."

* * *

* * *

The chaos of the fight ebbs, the clear space around Batman and the Cyborg widens. A dozen of Brainiac's skeletal combat robots lie in piles of scrap. Superwoman lands next to Batman, a sparking piece of ruined technology in her hand. "So. How do I help?"

Batman gestures to Cyborg, who has a Brainiac drone open and his arm jammed deep into its systems. "We buy him some time, he can cut off the communications between the main ship and its robots. That will leave its ground forces uncoordinated. We can handle them at that point." _We hope_. The robots are powerful but not clever. He's reasonably sure the League can deal with them. "That leaves the main ship."

"Well." She looks away for a second, to the battle zone around them. Finally she looks back to him. She draws her shoulders up and nods. When she speaks again she tries to make a joke of it, tries to smile. She just sounds tired. "I knew you didn't bring me back because you liked me."

 _I knew you needed something from me_.

 _No_ , he wants to say. _We brought you back because you deserve to live. Because I owed it to your mother. Because the world needs people who care. More than it needs someone like me_.

"I don't... not."

 _Fuck_.

* * *

* * *

It's the mundane details that make resurrection seem real to her. Like the fact that coming back to life (Or, thanks to Bruce and his sneaky ways, being discovered hospitalized in New Jersey with retrograde amnesia) doesn't mean you get your apartment back, so you have to crash at a friend's place. She'd spent enough time here before that Lois's apartment almost feels like home. Still, Clarke misses her old place.

"Yeah, it's... " Clarke trails off, talking on the phone with her mother. Sitting on Lois's couch, Clarke watches Lois microwaving herself some supper. Her friend isn't the worse cook Clarke has ever met, but she's definitely high on the list. "Well, I don't know if it's going good or not. Not sure what I can compare it to. But things are falling back into place." And she has said thank you to Bruce. But every time she says it she needs to bite back the words _it's the least you could do_. She's trying not to be bitter. _Tell me. Do you bleed?_ She focuses on the positive. "It's a good place, mom. I was lucky to find it. The previous tenant is leaving a bit early, so I can move in next week." Lois will be glad to have her couch back.

" _I hope it's bigger than your last place_."

"About the same size. Space costs money in Metropolis. But it's a lot brighter, and it's in a better area. And there's a grocery store just a few blocks away."

" _That sounds convenient. I have a pen, give me your address_."

"Three-forty-four Clinton Street - "

" _East or West Clinton?_ "

"Just Clinton Street."

" _I thought streets in Metropolis were east or west?_ "

"Some of them. Clinton Street ends at the bay, there is no east. So it's three-forty-four Clinton Street, zip code zero-six-zero-four-four--"

Mom cuts her off. " _Hang on, my pen died_."

Smiling a bit, Clarke shakes her head. "Mom, why don't I just text it to you?"

" _Oh, this is easier. Here, I found a pen. Start over_."

Her mother is driving Clarke crazy. She wouldn't miss this for all the world.


	3. Chapter 3

Best thing about flying? Being able to visit mom on short notice.

An hour ago one of Barry's recurring headaches, a career criminal now calling himself the Weather Wizard, had tried to take the entire Keystone-Central metro area hostage. Now Clarke is sitting in the kitchen of the old farmhouse, chatting with mom. It feels a little odd sitting here in her Kryptonian suit, hair slicked back and glasses off. That one curl that never stays back no matter how much product she uses is driving her crazy.

She gripes about Bruce for a couple of minutes while mom sets out snacks. Mom finishes slicing the banana bread and puts the tray on the kitchen table, next to the urn of coffee. "Why doesn't this 'Weather Wizard' just sell his technology?"

"A lot of these guys, their tech only works for them. It's actually a focus for their own abilities. But some of them... " Clarke shakes her head. "Some of them just don't want to do that much steady work. They might be technical geniuses, but they're crooks at heart. They'd rather rob a bank than sit down at a table and negotiate a sale for what they've invented."

"I don't get it."

"Me neither. This banana bread is good."

For a few minutes Clarke enjoys the familiar taste of mom's baking, the sounds of the old house, the way the light falls through the window. Just being there quietly with her mother.

"How's your job at the Planet?"

"Great, actually." Bruce hadn't even had to pull strings there. Perry had been downright ecstatic to have her back. He'd only called her Dorothy twice. "But I don't think Perry buys my cover anymore. He took me aside a few days ago and gave me a twenty minute lecture on journalism ethics. Said a good reporter doesn't need to make her own stories."

"Mm." Mom has never been as worried as dad was about it, but she clearly doesn't like the idea of someone knowing her daughter's secrets. She bites off a piece of banana bread and chews it with a bit too much force.

"So if I have to make any statements as Superwoman, I'll give them to WGBS or Metrocity. Lois isn't wild about that, but she agrees it's for the best." Clarke munches on another slice of banana bread and thinks about Lois. When she'd started working on her journalism diploma online, she'd had ambitions of being like Lois Lane. Now... "I'm lucky to have someone like Lois at my back. Perry told me that when she found out I'd applied at the Planet, she came up and told him to take a chance on me. She'd read a couple of my articles and thought I might be a good reporter someday."

"And what does she think now?"

Half smiling, Clarke has to admit, "That I might be a good reporter one day. Lois has standards." Leaning back in her chair she smiles fully. "You know, in some ways she reminds me of Diana. It's almost too bad she's straight - "

"Who, Diana? Like hell she is."

Clarke snorts. "No, Lois. I've been tempted to try and hook those two up, but it wouldn't work."

Mom looks up over the rim of her coffee cup. "How about Diana and Bruce? They have similar backgrounds. They're both rich."

"That's not much in common." Clarke frowns into her own cup. It's not like she hasn't wondered, a couple of times. Bruce and Diana have known each other for a while, and they're both very intense people. They could have gotten up to a lot while she was... gone. "God, Bruce. Did I tell you what that man did now?"

Mom smiles. "No honey. Why don't you?"

* * *

Everything is a straight line with that man, from point A to point B. He might have to jump around a bit to get over the obstacles, but he sees what he wants and he goes right at it.

This time what he'd wanted was the amplifier equipment Mark Mardon, the self-proclaimed Weather Wizard, had set up to allow him to threaten two cities. While the League fought the storms Mardon had circled around Keystone-Central and the cops fought the street gangs he'd hired to keep them busy, Batman had found Point A (An unused, unguarded rural road that gave access to the expressway connecting the twin cities) and identified Point B (The park on the Central City side of the Van Buren Bridge, where the buried infrastructure from the old stockyards gave lots of space to hide the amplifier), and then drew a nice straight line between the two using a bank's armoured car as a crayon.

Batman had smashed that car through the old gate blocking off the buried substation, and somehow he'd rigged the steering wheel and gas pedal to send it careening through the substation's access door without him actually inside. Mardon had popped out of his hiding place to fry the vehicle, and while he'd been busy shooting lightning from that wand of his Batman just walked up behind Mardon and punched him in the kidney.

And then he'd signalled the League that he'd disabled the amplifier. " _It's a Tesla coil and a bunch of crystal radio receivers. At least five of them, soldered together. I think he has a metal detector in there too. Mardon is a fucking idiot_."

* * *

"He roof-surfed an out of control armoured truck right into Mardon's ambush, then attacked a guy who can shoot lightning out of his wand - Stop snickering, mom. It's only a little funny." Setting her mug down with a solid clonk, Clarke frowns. "That man is going to get himself killed. He's in his thirties, he's got to slow down sometime. How long does he think he can keep doing this?"

Still snickering, mom leans back in her chair. She snorts one last time, and then her expression goes... Not quite serious. Almost regretful. "The rest of his life, if he gets himself killed doing it."

Which is exactly what Clarke is worried about. "Not funny, mom."

"Not joking, love. It feels strange to say it, but I've known Bruce longer than you have. He visited a few times, after your funeral. The third time... " Mom shifts in her chair, rolls her shoulders a bit. "He was sitting right where you are, and I asked him why he wanted to kill my daughter."

Clarke winces. She hasn't actually asked him that yet. She got as much of an answer out of him as she wants, in that alley. _You're not brave._ People _are brave_.

"He got up to leave, and I told him to sit down, he wasn't getting out of it that easy." The corners of mom's mouth creep up. "The look on his face. I don't think anyone's spoken to him like that in years."

"Did he? Sit down?" That's almost funny. She knows exactly what tone of voice mom must have used on Bruce.

"Oh yes. He knows what's good for him."

"Good." She doesn't want to know. She doesn't. "What did he say?"

* * *

_"After the Black Zero Event I decided that your daughter must be a threat. I told myself that was because of the risk she posed to humanity. That if there was even a one percent chance she would turn against us, I had to treat it as a certainty. But my fears had nothing to do with her actions. She was just something outside of myself, something I could blame. A scapegoat."_

_"For what?"_

_"The past few years. Have not been good to my family. I've failed them, in too many ways."_

_"Your foster son. Jason."_

_"Him too. I couldn't hunt the Joker down. That would just be revenge. Murder. But if I escalated my war, that wasn't revenge. It was just crime fighting with an edge. So I started marking the worst of them. Branding them, sending them off to prison as marked men. I told myself that maybe the consequences would make people think twice before they committed these crimes."_

_"It's hard to think twice with a prison knife in your back."_

_"Yes."_

_"Did you ever mark the wrong person?"_

_"Yes. Mistakes are inevitable. That's why when I started, I told myself I wouldn't kill. Promises don't last long in Gotham City."_

_"How did my child become one of those mistakes?"_

_"With the Black Zero Event I had something outside I could focus on. Focus my anger on. I decided that your daughter must be a threat. I'm not good with my own failures, but threats are something I can deal with. I thought... If I could do this one thing, deal with this one threat, it would make up for all the things I've failed to do. And if I couldn't, then I could die trying."_

* * *

Clarke exhales hard through her nostrils and works to unclench her jaw. "That is the stupidest thing I've heard in my life."

"Says the girl who jumped right in front of Doomsday's claw - "

"Not the same thing, mom."

Carrying on as though her daughter hadn't spoken, "and grabbed a nice big chunk of kryptonite, just to make sure she'd be really vulnerable while that thing took a swipe at her."

Okay, first of all, she'd done all that in the heat of the moment. It's not as though she'd had time to think her actions through. "Not the same thing. I wasn't trying to get myself killed."

"Luthor made that thing out of General Zod."

God, was anything Lex Luthor did not creepy? "Yeah. So?"

Mom plays with her cup, moves it back and forth between her hands. "I know it broke you up inside to kill him. And then when you let it kill you - "

Clarke pushes her chair back a bit. "I didn't 'let' it do anything."

"You couldn't use that high-pressure breath of yours to push Bruce out of the way? Or just grab him before Doomsday could stab him?"

"Didn't think of it." How long has mom been thinking about this? Since it happened, probably.

When you let it kill you, try to kill you, I had to wonder."

 _Let it_. "Well. I didn't... " Why argue with mom about this? Clarke reaches across the table and holds her mother's hand. "I'm sorry I hurt you, mom. I'm... " She clears her throat. "I'm so sorry. I'm better now. I won't do anything like that again."

"Oh honey, you just got into a fight with a man who shoots lightning from his wand."

"It's okay mom. It wasn't a big wand."

And they are apparently both ten, because they spend the next half minute snickering and trying not to look one another in the eye because when they do it just makes them laugh harder.

Eventually mom manages to get herself under control. "Honestly, how are you finding it? Coming out of that coma, or back to life, however you want to say it?"

"It's... " Hard. Hard on her mom. Hard on Lois. All of the people who mourned her, who now have to pretend they buried the wrong person. "I won't say it's been easy. I missed so much in that time. But at least on a practical level it's easier than I expected. That's Bruce's work, though."

Mom nods. "All of that faked paperwork. How was the hospital in Trenton?"

"You know, it's funny but I can't remember a thing."

Snorting again, mom raises her cup to drain it. Then she makes a face at the dredges and touches the side of the urn to check if it's still hot. "You want any more?"

"I'm good. Honestly though, I'm amazed how thorough Bruce has been. My old death certificate has a note saying it's a tentative identification, there's a missing person report with the Metropolis PD, hospital records of an amnesiac Jane Doe. And it's all backdated, properly filed, and cross-referenced. When Bruce decides to do something... "

"He crashes right through the doors and goes straight to it."

"Eyup."


	4. Chapter 4

Ten years in Gotham City, for what?

For starters, breaking the links between the GCPD and organized crime groups had allowed the city to claw it's way down to the fifth highest crime rate in the country. Behind St. Louis, Hub City, Opal City, and Baltimore.

Positive. He's trying to see things in a more positive light these days. It's not easy. The first step is to stop blaming himself for not being able to do everything singlehandedly.

It's really not easy.

Tonight is a patrol night. There's nothing specific that he knows about, and nothing over the radio that needs a maniac in bat-armour to deal with. A robbery in Bristol, couple of muggings downtown, drug deal in the Narrows. None of it is close enough to deal with even if it had needed him. Right now he's in the densely packed low apartment buildings of north Old Gotham, on a rooftop with a good view of the brick and concrete walkway across the Gotham River to south Old Gotham. A hundred years ago the connected office towers on either side of the river had been impressive monoliths. Now they're backlit by taller and brighter modern buildings. They're still popular with tourists, and the bridge between them is one of the most photographed sites in the city.

Tourism is up. That's good too. Positive.

He hurtles the narrow alley between residential buildings easily (maybe a little less easily than ten years ago) and proceeds northward. Proceeding is an old police and army trick he's picked up, a rolling pace that doesn't burn a lot of energy but covers ground fairly quickly. It's a good pace for patrol, which is as much about learning the city as it is about spotting crimes in progress.

Superwoman announces her presence with a sonic bang and a gust of wind. At least he hopes it's her. He doesn't want to deal with anything else that can move that fast. Turning, he looks up to the moon. It's her, lit up as much by the city glow as the half-moon behind her. Seeing her in the sky like this no longer inspires dread and rage, just a sort of tired resignation to his own idiocies.

 _Do you bleed?_ Fuck. No wonder she'd called him a sociopath.

Superwoman drifts down to the roof. She's getting a lot better at landings. For the longest time she'd just fly straight down until she hit the ground. Now she touches down just a couple of yards away from him, as lightly as though stepping down a short stair.

"What's going on?" He winces under the mask. Positive. Just because she's shown up doesn't mean there's a disaster or crisis. It hasn't happened every time. Just most of the time.

"Nothing's going on. I came by to say thank you. Lois keeps an eye on my legal status. She's better at doing it discretely than I am. According to her there have been a couple more updates and corrections that have worked their way through the system. My identity is as sound as it ever before the Black Zero Event. Thank you for that."

Government paperwork moves, no matter how slowly. As documents pass through the system he has been making small changes, filing in gaps. This latest round of revisions will be the last. "You're welcome."

Her hair is slicked back away from her face, except for that one long curl that always defies her hair product. With her hair back and her glasses off it highlights her bone structure, and he is once again envious at how simple and light her disguise is. His includes a padded cap, armoured collar, voice distorter, and heavy cowl. In summer the armour is too damned hot, in winter it's too damned cold. Now in the fall it's just too damned heavy. And don't get him started on the way the cape weighs down on his shoulders.

Positive. It's not her fault she wasn't born to a high-profile family. Doesn't need to work as hard to hide.

Leaning against an exhaust vent, she crosses her arms and looks around. "It's a quiet night in Metropolis. Looks quiet here too. I figured now was as good a time as any to come by and say thanks. Talk, maybe."

The problem with being an atheist is that there's no one to pray to for a sudden outbreak of elaborately themed crimes. A talk? Trying to keep the worry from his face - Why should he be worried? A colleague wants to have a talk. No worries. Trying not to look too surprised at the late visit, he walks over to the edge of the building and sits on the parapet, facing out over the alley. "Sure."

She drifts across the roof and over the parapet, settling gently into a seated posture without looking down the wall. Her red and gold insignia gleams in the city's amber night. It's the most famous graphic design in the world, recognized globally.

"How's work?" He sticks to a neutral conversational topic. No, that's not neutral. Her best friend and mentor from work attended her funeral.

"It's great. Perry's finally letting me do some independent work. There are some weird anomalies at a seniors residence in Hob's Bay, right in Suicide, no deaths among the residents in three years. I'm going in to talk to the director on Tuesday."

"Insurance fraud? No, some sort of scam involving government grants seems more likely."

"My first thought too. But I've called some people with family in the centre, and all their relatives are alive. So it's not faked documentation, or at least not an easy to spot fake."

"Interesting." It is, actually. Could just be a statistical anomaly, a happy coincidence. But Hob's Bay is a poor district, and the area called Suicide Slum is one of the worst in the country, and people in places like that rarely get happy coincidences. Certainly not in groups large enough to be noticed. "Is it anywhere near a piece of Kryptonian tech?"

"Lois's first question. Not that I can find."

"Hm."

"So." She taps the building with one heel. "Have you ever met Lois? I mean, outside of work?"

"Yes. A few times." After Clarke's funeral.

Another quick tap on the wall. Batman... Does not hope she doesn't bring the building down, because he is staying positive and Superwoman is far too careful for that.

"You should get to know her. I know she's kind of intense when she's working, especially if you're on the wrong side of her article, but she's a really nice person. Incredibly supportive. I wouldn't be where I am now without her." Tap, tap. "She's closer to your age too. Than I am."

Slowly, he turns his head to look at Superwoman. Keeping his face blank is not easy. "Are you trying to hook me up with your friend?"

"No." She's just a little too quick and a little too firm with that. "No no. I just thought you two should meet, that's all. I'm having a house party, well, an apartment party, in a couple of weeks. You should come. Lois will be there. You two might hit it off. As friends, I mean."

She is trying to hook them up. As Alfred might put it in one of his rare unguarded moments, bloody fucking hell. He settles for making a _hm_ noise. "Send me the date. I'll check my calendar."

Her answering _hm_ is unhappy. She didn't get a yes out of him, but she's not going to push it any further.

"Is that what you came for? To invite me to your party?" Can't be. She has his number. Business and personal.

"Mostly. And to say thank you for the work you've done." She shuffles a bit on the ledge, tilts her head from side to side. "And I wanted to apologize for what I said. When you revived me."

"You want to apologize." What the hell does _she_ need to apologize to _him_ for?

"When I first came back. When I said, 'does it need you?'. Gotham does." She gestures out towards the buildings. "This city is better than when you started. And the world does. If it hadn't been for you, Luthor's Doomsday would have eventually killed Diana and me."

That's... An overly kind description of the situation. Very Clarke. "I brought those weapons to kill you."

He hears her clear her throat. "I know. But Luthor was already cooking up Doomsday. And if you hadn't stolen that kryptonite, Luthor would have used it against me. Or to control Doomsday, after it had killed me."

She's not wrong about that part. The whole business had been a total clusterfuck. One he could have avoided by just thinking for a few minutes, by doing a basic tactical analysis, by listening to Alfred. Instead he'd argued, kept secrets, pushed Alfred and Dick away.

Dick. He'd pushed his son away as hard as he could, and hurt Dick so much doing so he'd thought there was no way they'd ever be family again. And he'd been wrong about that too. They're getting better, the two of them.

Superwoman's voice interrupts his thoughts. "What's going on with the old docks? I thought you had some redevelopment plans for the area?"

A change of subject. He'd thank the nearest higher power if he wasn't an atheist. Although, strictly speaking, the nearest higher power is responsible for the change of subject... "Same thing as always. Money. Some property developers decided I must have an angle, some way of getting something out of the project that they can't see. They wanted a piece of it, so they leaned on a couple of city councillors to stall redevelopment until they could figure out how to get a cut. For three years nothing happened in that area. Until we blew it up."

"What's happening with it now?"

"Nothing. Insurance companies are still fighting the payouts. Local, state, and federal governments are fighting over who has to pay for cleanup."

"I guess I knew that. I just hoped I was wrong." She shakes her head. "Maybe I should have the Fortress churn out a few robots, get them to clean up the mess."

"Maybe you should get that crashed Kryptonian ship out of downtown Metropolis first." Shit. He'd been trying to make a joke. Instead he just sounds petty.

She kicks at the air. "The government still refuses to give me access, and I don't want to push too hard. Maybe I should be pushing harder. I don't know why they won't move it themselves. There's a public park right there, for God's sake."

Positive. Focus on the positive. "At least they didn't put that statue back up."

"Yeah. That thing was... " She shakes her head again, setting that curl swinging. "Grotesque. Thank heaven for small mercies, I guess."

In the moment's quiet, he wonders if he should say anything. He's still not sure why she's here. Really, all of this could have been covered in a text. _Thanks for the documentation work, party at my place next week?_

"Gotham's a lot quieter than it used to be. When I was in high school this city was a punchline. Now it's pretty nice."

It's true. Gotham is almost civilized. Batman is almost respectable now. Last week the Gazette called him a 'superhero'. He can tell people finally accept Superwoman. Marketers are sticking a super-prefix to everything lately. Even vigilantes with no right to be called an anything-hero.

She's stopped kicking the building. Leaning forward, hands on the ledge, her posture is almost hunched. "I used to admire you, when you started. Sometimes I thought I could do what you do, be like you." Fucking terrifying thought. Someone with her power and his approach to the world. "Then you started branding people, sending them off to be murdered in prison. I just couldn't understand. And the first time I see you in action, it's a high-speed chase and gun fight that kills I don't even know how many people. Then you tried to run me over. When I saw who you were, I realized some of it had to be about your foster son. But I was still... "

Disappointed. He can hear it in her voice.

Time for the truth. He'd rather throw himself into the alley. He's had worse falls. "After I'd convinced myself you were a threat, I pushed myself into a spiral imagining all the ways you could kill people. Gave myself nightmares. I had one where you put your hand on my chest - " He puts his hand out, palm flat against an imaginary surface, and shoves. "I woke up sure there was a hole in my chest."

The woman who'd actually had a hole torn through her heart closes her eyes for a second and sighs. When she opens them again he looks away.

"Didn't matter that it wasn't true. I convinced myself that it might be true one day. Drove myself down into my own anger. Everything I'd failed to do, every time I'd failed my family, I could take out on you. I wouldn't fail to protect humanity."

She stands up, not bothering to watch her footing on the ledge. "I'm not your scapegoat."

"I know. Now." This stopped being any sort of patrol a long time ago. Standing, he steps back off the parapet to the roof and faces her. "You're not a god. You're not all-powerful, you're not all-good. You're just trying to do your best."

"I've been telling people that for years now."

"I wasn't listening."

"Yeah."

She steps off the roof, then pauses above the alley. That Kryptonian smart-fabric cape flares dramatically in the slight breeze. Turning as though she were still on the ground, she faces him. "That first conversation we had, at Luthor's party. Do you treat a lot of women like that?"

The party. He'd put most of it behind him until he learned who the Superwoman really was. Looking back, that conversation had been a slow-motion train wreck. _Don't believe everything you hear, darling_. He'd started off dismissive and slid downhill into misogynistic. "I was trying to drive you away."

"You're good at that." Her lips twitch upwards in something like a smile. "See you around, Batman."

He really is good at it. He wasn't even trying this time.

* * *

* * *

Martha finishes filling the kettle and plugs it in. "No, you're not interrupting anything important. I was just going over some bookkeeping for the fields." She sits down at the kitchen table, with her phone and plate of snacks next to the stack of papers. "You said you were going to talk with Bruce. How did that go?"

Clarke's voice comes out of the phone. " _Well, I might have taken a swing at getting Lois and Bruce hooked up_."

"Swing and a miss?" She can't be holding too much of a grudge if she's willing to try and set Bruce up with her best friend. Although maybe she's just aiming Lois at Bruce...

" _Yeah. Poor Bruce. All you can see under that cowl is his mouth, and he still managed to look worried. I don't think he's been on a date in years. There's no way he'll show up for my party_."

Martha pushes the paperwork away and brings her plate and the phone closer. There's nothing in the bookkeeping that can't wait until later. "What's Lois up to these days? Working on her next big award?"

" _Yep. I don't know how she does it. She started with a couple of questions about maintenance contracts at the Bakerline Port Authority, now she's in Japan terrorizing the executives at a marine pumps company. And she doesn't even speak Japanese_."

The kettle starts to boil. Martha tells her daughter to wait a second and she pours herself a small pot of tea. Coming back to the table she asks what else is happening at the Planet. Jimmy is having problems with his ID, it seems.

" _Mainly his passport. Apparently, and you didn't hear this from me, the CIA sent an agent out into the field with his ID and press credentials and the poor guy got himself killed. He was running around with an old film camera, God only knows where he got that, an antiques store maybe, pretending to be a professional photojournalist. So the State Department filed a death certificate for James Bartholomew Olsen._ "

"Isn't the CIA a bit conservative with their hiring? How did anyone expect one of their agents to pass for a short redhaired trans kid?"

Clarke's sigh whispers through the phone. " _I told you before mom, if you're asking these kinds of questions then you're overqualified for intelligence work_."

She pours herself a cup of tea. She'd found the box at the back of the cupboard and it smells a little weak. Probably dried out. "Other than scared of commitment, how's Bruce?"

Clarke doesn't say anything for a long second. Finally she mutters something Martha can't catch over the phone.

"How are you two getting along?"

" _I'm... trying to get along with him. I'm trying to let go of it, mom_." She knows exactly what Clarke means by 'it'. " _But every time we talk he says something to piss me off_."

She'd forgiven Bruce months ago, not that it was easy, but she understands why Clarke hasn't yet. She expects her daughter is mostly there though. That's just who Clarke is. "I got to know him pretty well while you were away. He's very good at accepting blame, not so good at accepting forgiveness."

The tea is definitely old. She'll toss the rest of the bags in the compost later.

" _Blame_... " A loud exhalation. " _Well. He tried to explain how he got to that point, how he decided I was some sort of threat to all humanity_."

"Trying to make up for his own feelings of not doing enough. It doesn't sound like he thinks anything he does is enough."

" _Yeah, that's Bruce. And I guess I understand that feeling, because there's always more I could do, but I know there's always something I won't be able to do. Ugh. I know when he explains it he's not trying to blame me, mom. But hearing him say that he went on that rampage because he thought it was the best way to protect people from me._.. " There's a long pause. Martha almost speaks, and then her child does. " _I just don't know how to handle that_."

"Then don't."

Another pause " _I think I sort of need to_."

"Yes you do. But I know you, honey. You like to work your way around things, starting from the outside in. It's how you write, too. So put this on the back burner, let it cook for a while, and come back to it when it's ready."

Clarke's voice is amused. " _Have you had lunch yet? I can always tell when you're hungry_."

"That was a poetic metaphor, brat. Bruce might be theatrical, but you're right about him being a very point-A to point-B type. And Diana strikes me as being very straightforward - "

" _Oh, she is. She's kind, but incredibly blunt_."

"But you think in circles. Everything overlaps for you. So just figure out the outer circles and start working your way in."

" _That's... I guess that's an interesting way of putting it. But you're not wrong_." Martha gives Clarke another five second pause, and right when she expects it Clarke circles back to the begining. " _He explains everything, but he doesn't apologize. He says everything except 'I'm sorry'._ "

"If he said he was sorry, you might take the chance to forgive him. I'm not saying you have to, that's up to you. But I think he'd rather you didn't."

" _God. That man_."

Martha laughs. "Knowing you, you'll forgive him just to piss him off."

She hears her daughter laugh back and smiles in relief. It took too long for Clarke to laugh again. " _I really should_."

"It's a shame you two started off on the wrong foot," Martha says, as diplomatically as she can. Least of all because stubborn pains in the ass like Bruce are exactly that girl's type. More importantly because the two of them... "You might have been friends otherwise."

" _I guess we almost are, sometimes_."


	5. Chapter 5

"Superwoman. Status report."

"It's healing slowly and I'm in an incredible amount of pain. Thanks for asking."

Batman fires his grappling gun past Superwoman's scorched shoulder, into the visual sensor of one of Luthor's robots. "Next time," he cuts himself off with a grunt as he yanks hard, bringing the tall robot down on top of a mini-tank the size of a Great Dane. "Don't jump in front of a kryptonite beam."

"Had to." Trying to move her steaming left shoulder as little as possible, Superwoman grabs a prybar from a nearby toolbox and flings it like a javelin at the faceplate of yet another approaching robot. The fling goes a little to the right, and the robot dodges left on its treads, skidding straight on to some of the flashbangs Batman had scattered earlier. None of them are particularly large explosives, but three of them are enough to disable its tread. Two electroshock batarangs take care of its laser array.

"Had. To."

"You'd'a been fried with that many kilowatts. Even weakened by kryptonite I'm tougher'n a human." The two of them fall back down the warehouse corridor. The aisle they're in backs up to an outer wall, but Batman has already spotted a way through to the next aisle over. For now they're sticking to this corridor, trying to take down as many robots as possible. Luthor still prioritizes killing the two of them, so every robot they draw away from the main fight outside is one less threatening civilians. Fortunately most of these robots are relatively slow, with heavier armour, straightforward programming, and a lack of mobility compared to some of Luthor's work. They're restricted to a frontal attack. Right now something like a buzzsaw-enabled beetle is racing down the corridor at them. Superwoman steps to the side, next to a high stack of crates.

Batman watches as Superwoman shoves one-handed at the pile of crates, groaning as it strains her shoulder. As the beetlebot approaches their position the pile shifts and crates come down on top of the machine. Batman uses the fallen crates as cover, giving him a better line of sight down the corridor. "'You'd'a'."

"I'd'a what?"

Superwoman keeps an eye on the space behind and above them, as Batman takes down two smaller robots with Batarangs. "You. Would. Have." And one more robot. "One batarang left."

"Nothing behind us. We can fall back to the canned goods aisle. It feels like I'll have heat vision back in a minute, maybe less." Something fast and metallic hurtles the barrier of ruined crates and robots. Superwoman smashes it to scrap with a fast jab that only hurts a little. "And don't you start on my accent, Mr Jersey Shore."

Pulling themselves through the gap in packing Batman spotted earlier they make their way to the next aisle over. Superwoman's cape only catches once and she only bangs her wounded shoulder twice.

"You start taking better care of yourself, and I'll stop giving you a hard time."

"What - _aw darn_ that hurts! What does that have to do with anything?" Superwoman gestures to a nearby forklift. Batman nods and walks over to it. Pulling a surprising array of multitools out of his utility belt he starts to work on opening up its electrical panels.

"The League is a small team. It needs its full roster. We can't - " He looks up briefly as Superwoman punches the first armoured robot to come around the corner. The front of the robot caves and it collapses like a pile of tin cans. Her strength is coming back. "We can't afford to have someone taken down in the first five seconds of the fight."

Two more robots come around the corner. A half-second of stuttering low-intensity heat vision burns out the scanners on one. The other settles to the ground and brings its beam weapon to bear on Superwoman, a beam emitter the size of a desktop computer screen glowing green - 

* * *

* * *

"And then that goddamn pigheaded hypocritical son of a bitch - " Clarke glances upwards. "Sorry Martha. That man goes and jumps in front of an electrolaser. His cape and armour are insulated, but he was still down for almost a minute." Lois watches her friend scowl. "I guess he thought it was another kryptonite beam. Honestly though. He's worse than my father."

Lois wonders if there are any men in Clarke's life who can't be described as pigheaded. Jonathan Kent let himself die in a tornado rather than risk having his child's secrets exposed, and left that child to wonder if he'd regretted his choice in his last minutes.

"So he gets up, finally, and he's still so shaky he can barely stand. And he looks at me and says 'speaking of New Jersey' - "

"That's one hell of a non sequitur."

"Oh yeah. He'd been making fun of my accent again. I told him that Mr Jersey Shore doesn't get to make jokes."

Lois tries to picture Batman, Grim Avenger of the Night (TM & CC) making jokes about anything once, let alone 'again'. She fails. For that matter, she fails at imaging Batman and Superwoman trading quips in the middle of a battle.

"'Speaking of New Jersey'," Clarke growls. "'My son is visiting this Saturday. We're having a barbeque - '"

Holy fuck the Batman barbeques. Holy fuck the Batman invited Superwoman to _meet his son_.

"Tell me you didn't accept."

"Well," Clarke says.

"You accepted."

"Well."

"Will his butler be serving kryptonite cocktails?"

"Lois. He's trying, okay? I'm willing to give him a chance."

"A chance at what?"

"Just... Being normal, I guess."

Like there's anything normal about Batman trying to hook Superwoman up with his kid.

* * *

* * *

Motorcycling south down Wyoming Avenue, Dick Grayson lets himself be distracted for a second by the amazing distance his relationship with Bruce has travelled over the past couple of years. That hole Bruce had dug himself into had once seemed bottomless. Now that angry, closed off Bruce has let himself be human again, let himself become the person Dick had first met as a child.

Now Bruce has this woman he wants Dick to meet.

He'd invited Dick to the manor. The same day he has a guest over. He hadn't told Dick a thing about his guest, and Alfred had refused to say a word except that she is "perhaps a friend" of Bruce's. Which is so many levels of WTF. Is this 'here's someone you might like to meet, BTW Alfred wants great-grandkids' or is this 'here's a woman I've met, Alfred is expecting grandkids'?

Dick slows as he crosses the historic bridge over the Miagani River and enters Gotham's Old Bristol townsite, an area of stone and brick buildings that are a lot less old than the local tourism board would like people to believe. He glides to a quiet halt at a crosswalk. The silence is his favourite feature of his new Kord Lightning Bug, a lightweight agile electric motorbike. The top speed is a little limited, just over a hundred and fifty miles an hour, but it accelerates like a bullet. And your head doesn't keep ringing for ten minutes after you get off the bike.

He's out of downtown Old Bristol in a couple of minutes and into the wealthy area of Bristol, wide silent streets and big lawns behind walls with gates. These are the homes of mere millionaires, clustered around the old properties of the Waynes and Kanes. Another few minutes takes Dick into the row of mansions outside the high walls around Wayne Manor.

Wayne Manor lies beneath the Newark Mountains, with the Miagani Reservation above. The 'Dutch' families living in the region had probably been more than half Miagani by the time the Wayne brothers came along to marry their daughters and inherit their lands.

Dick checks in with security at the front gate. The guards on today are new, or maybe Dick just hasn't been at the manor in that long, and he doesn't recognize either of them. They let him through without any problems.

The lawn and road to the manor are better kept than they have been in years, and there's scaffolding around the house. Even on the weekend there are a couple of vans parked outside the manor, surveyors and architects and work crews going through the fire-damaged building. Bruce has never offered an adequate explanation for the fire that gutted Wayne Manor a few months after Jason's death. _Old house, bad wiring_. The fire investigators accepted it. Dick knows that one of Bruce's cover identities is a professional arsonist.

Dick drives on to the lake house. Bruce's father had commissioned the place for Martha Wayne, a private getaway. The first time Dick had seen the low concrete structure in the woods, with its wall of glass facing the lake, he'd blurted out that it looked like a serial killer's dream home. And that was before he'd even seen the basement. The stark Brutalist levels in the cave were originally intended as a private spa and library. As far as Dick is concerned, however much Thomas Wayne had paid the architect it had been too much.

Dick pulls into the driveway and lowers the bike's kickstand. Bruce and his guest are on the deck nearest the driveway, looking out over the lake, and Alfred is nowhere to be seen. Pulling off his helmet, Dick balances it on the bike. With the helmet off he catches a bit of Bruce and Guest finishing their conversation. Pulling off his riding gear to reveal his jeans and polo shirt he thinks he catches Bruce tell this woman she needs to be more careful, which is an entirely normal level of staggering hypocrisy for him. Dick plugs in the bike and watches as Bruce and Guest walk over to the driveway.

 _Nice legs_ , Dick thinks. Bruce's guest is wearing a red and black diamond plaid skirt with sandals and a white blouse. That skirt wouldn't be short on another woman but she's nearly six feet tall and her legs are very long. She's about Dick's age and looks athletic. But as good as she looks, there's got to be more to her than just a nice figure for Bruce to introduce her to Dick.

"Hi. Dick Grayson." Dick introduces himself. He glances between Bruce and the woman for some sort of cue as to what sort of meeting this is supposed to be.

"My son," Bruce says, and holy shit it's been years since he's introduced Dick as his son. Dick tries to cover his shock for a second and then just gives in and grins at Bruce.

"Yeah," he says, aware that he's smiling too hard for what must seem like an ordinary introduction. Dick doesn't care.

"Clarke Kent, Daily Planet." The corner of her mouth twitches up. "Sorry, habit. I'm not working today."

Shaking her hand, Dick notices that the woman looks familiar somehow. Her glossy black curls are pushed back with a pink headband and her heavy round glasses cover her eyebrows, and Dick tries to picture her with a different hairstyle and contacts. She's a reporter. Dick thinks he must have seen her on the news.

As they walk back to the deck Bruce is chill enough for small talk. "How was the drive?"

"Good. Hardly any traffic. I made really good time on the expressway."

"Speeding again."

Clarke is watching them talk, mostly watching Bruce, with a small smile. Dick turns to her. "He is the world's biggest hypocrite about speeding. Have you seen this man drive?"

"Oh yes." That smile turns slightly exasperated. There's a private joke here, Dick thinks. This afternoon is going to be interesting.

Bruce opens the deck's minifridge and holds a beer out to Dick. The grill is hot and Dick smells at least lamb and beef grilling, and maybe chicken. There are two large coolers out, probably with sides and salads, a wine rack, bowls of chips, and a table covered with various fixings. Bruce has gone all out on this.

Dick takes his beer and drops down into a deck chair and the other two follow suit. Clarke chooses a seat closer to Bruce than Dick, but it also lets her watch Dick head on. Still no real clue there. They make small talk, and Bruce teases Dick about college. Dick argues that he hadn't actually dropped out, he just changed his major to something where he'd already had enough credits to graduate. "Where's Alfred?"

"He has a date. Jolanda. Woman from his theatre group."

It's Saturday and Bruce is wearing a collared shirt and a tie, his favourite dark blue shirt under a charcoal grey sleeveless sweater Dick has never seen before. It looks like silk. All he needs is a pipe to complete that 1950's TV Dad look. Is Bruce trying to impress this woman? Because if yes... Holy shit, is Bruce trying to introduce Clarke to his family?

No. Get a grip on yourself, Dick. More likely Bruce has been replaced by one of Ivy's pod people. Or an alien.

"You're from Metropolis?"

"Yeah," Clarke replies. "Kansas originally. I travelled for a few years, writing for travel sites and local newspapers, then settled in Metropolis and lucked into a job at the Planet."

Nobody just lucks into a job at one of the nation's biggest news organizations. Dick makes a note to read Clarke Kent's articles. Maybe he already has. If he's seen her profile picture that might explain why she looks vaguely familiar.

"I travelled a lot as a kid. Showbiz family."

"I've heard." Not a surprise. The Grayson murder was national news for a week, maybe more. "Bruce talks about you a lot."

"Does he?" Dick looks over at Bruce, who is wearing an apron and mitts as he prods meat on the grill and pretends not to listen.  
Bruce pulls off the mitts and apron and joins the two of them on the chairs. Somehow Bruce has managed to pick a completely wrong look for a barbeque. He's wearing a tie pin, for God's sake. Dick has seen Bruce play Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy at women before, but he's only seen Bruce try to seriously impress one woman. He's actually horrible at it.

"Whatever he's said about me, I want you to know this man is a terrible father. He's been calling me a dick since I was twelve."

Clarke grins at Dick. "Bruce, why didn't you tell me he was funny?"

"Because he's not. This kid is a dick."

They talk a bit about work. Dick has stopped teasing Bruce about his supposed plans to become a cop. "I run a private investigation and intelligence company," Dick tells Clarke.

"How's Nigma?" Bruce cuts in for a second.

"He's doing really good. Steady." He looks back over to Clarke. "I hire ex-cons, if it seems like they're ready to start over. Edward Nigma, you might have heard of him?"

Clarke nods. "The Riddler. I'm glad to hear he's doing better." When she says 'doing better' she gives Bruce a glance that Dick thinks is somehow supposed to be significant. He's missing a lot here.

A timer buzzes and Bruce gets up again to check the grill. Dick continues the conversation with Clarke, who is watching Bruce's back.

"So do you visit Gotham often?"

Clarke makes a thoughtful noise, as though she's thinking about what to say. "This is the first time I've been here outside of work." A long curl has escaped from her headband and is dangling down her face. She brushes it back and it bounces right back down. "But I did work in Gotham City, Vegas, for a few months."

"I read your articles," Bruce calls over his shoulder.

She nods to Bruce. "For the travel sites? That was really early in my career. Not impressive stuff. But the venue... I had to wear this really skimpy Bat of Gotham costume." She watches Bruce, who is trying to act as though he's really fascinated with those burgers. "You should have seen it. Microskirt up to _here_ , barely-legal corset, and a mask and cape. It hardly covered anything. We called it the Batslut of, well, rude-word-for-sex-worker-ham."

Dick's not sure what's happening with Bruce. Judging by the convulsions he's either trying not to laugh or having a stroke. Possibly both. Eventually he gets himself under control enough to announce that the food is ready. And then he even manages to make a joke at Clarke that he's worried her vegetarian patties might still be raw. Clarke flicks a bent bottle cap at him and he catches it easily.

Clarke stands. "I was playing around in Alfred's garden earlier. I should go wash my hands."

She leaves without asking for directions. Either Bruce showed her around earlier today, or he showed her around first thing this morning. Or earlier. Dick watches her go. So does Bruce. Then Bruce faces Dick with a concerned expression. "What do you think?"

"Seems like an interesting 'just a friend' you've got here." And oh God, confused uncomfortable Bruce is the best thing in the world. "Bruce, I like her but who is she? She's obviously not just a reporter."

Bruce smirks. That fucking 'Learning opportunity, Robin' smirk. "A colleague. You figure it out."

A colleague. Obviously not a Wayne Enterprises colleague. She's got the legs for a kick-heavy fighting style. Dick tries to imagine her in a blonde wig. "Is she Black Canary? Are you dating Black Canary?"

Like he's been tased again, Bruce's entire body twitches. Expressions flash across his face like PowerPoint slides queued by a hyperactive eight year old; Shock, panic, a half-second of pleased surprise Dick wishes he could get a picture of, and then panic again.

" _Da_ \- No! Is that what this - No. Do you think she thinks - Why would I wear a fucking tie to a date?" He actually touches the tie.

"I don't know. You've got the whole Father Knows Best look going on, I thought she might be into that." And now that he thinks about it her outfit has a heavy retro theme. Maybe Dick should get a cardigan and tie. But he hates ties even more than Bruce does.

"This is a sweater, Dick. Not a suit. It's casual."

"Bruce, you're Jewish - "

"Atheist."

Dick shrugs at the inevitable correction. "If you're not Jewish then we need to stop eating your burnt latkes every hanukkah. Either way, you're just not WASP-y enough for a weekend casual tie."

He sees movement inside the window, so Dick drops the subject. Clarke comes back out to the patio.

"Were you listening?" Bruce asks her, which is absolutely hilarious even by Bruce's standards of paranoia.

"Why bother? I know what you were looking at." She scoffs. "I could see your reflections as I was leaving, boys."

Dick recognizes that flat, distant expression on Bruce's face. He's screaming inside.

"I." Bruce can't seem to think of anything else to say. Dick realizes he'd been wrong earlier about confused uncomfortable Bruce. Deer in the headlights Bruce is the best thing in the world.

"Oh relax. You're pretty well behaved most of the time."

Despite Clarke's eyes her complexion is too dark to be Black Canary. Some other crime-fighting 'superhero' then? Not buff enough to be Wonder Woman, not dark enough and too tall to be Vixen. But there have been a lot of metahumans coming out of the shadows since Superwoman showed up. Clarke could be someone new.

There's a couple of minutes of silence while everyone fills their plate. Bruce grilled a truly huge pile of sausages and patties, even compared to the high fuel needs of Batman and Co, and Dick worries that he might have gone overboard. He stops worrying when he sees Clarke stack three patties on a bun, load them up with hot mustard, pickles, and peppers, put two veggie sausages on her plate along with a triple serving of potato salad, and then grab another bottle of lager.

Sitting down with his own plate of sausages and burgers, Dick turns to Clarke before her mouth is full. "So, how did you two meet?" Dick ignores the look Bruce shoots him.

"Oh Lord, what a mess that was." Clarke shakes her head. "We met at Luthor's charity event, not long before the Doomsday rampage. I was working and I didn't feel like interviewing a drunk rich guy about his charities, so I asked Bruce a few questions about Batman. He got grumpy about a Daily Planet reporter questioning the ethics of vigilante action. Superheroism, I guess we call it now." She looks at Bruce with a rueful smile. "Looking back, that conversation was actually kind of funny."

Clarke picks up another bottle cap, looks at Bruce with his mouthful of food as though she's considering flicking it at him again, and then puts the cap down. "And then he hit me with his car."

"There's a gap," Bruce mumbles around a mouthful of lamb burger. "You've left a few things out."

"None of them make you look any better, Mr Shot His Way Out Of A Boat."

Holy shit. No fucking way.

"You were standing right in the middle of the road. There was nowhere for me to go around you."

"You hit the gas, Bruce."

"You wrecked my car."

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. "Are - Are you - " He looks at Bruce. "Is she - "

"Took you long enough. Dick, meet Superwoman."

"I prefer Clarke."

Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit. Holy shit.

"That blank expression is his screaming inside face," Bruce says.

* * *

* * *

Lying across her couch, Clarke flicks through animal pictures on her laptop as she tells Lois about the barbeque. Lois sits at the counter that divides Clarke's living space from her kitchen, nursing her third double espresso of the morning.

"It was kind of funny. When Dick went to the bathroom, Bruce looked at me and said 'what do you think of my son?'."

"What do you think?" Lois asks.

"Have you met Dick Grayson?"

"Once, back when he was fifteen. Maybe sixteen. Tall kid."

"Well trust me, he's not a kid anymore. Cute guy. About my height, really nice shoulders. He's funny, too. You might like him." Although Lois is older. Divide her age by two, add seven, yeah it would still work.

"Green Arrow. Blue Beetle. Aquaman. Whoever Grayson is - "

"Nightwing."

"Whoever. Stop trying to hook me up with your work friends. If I want a rich guy I'll marry Jimmy."

"Does Jimmy get a say in this?"

"No."

Clarke laughs. She sets her laptop on the floor and stretches a bit. "I'm still not sure why Bruce wanted me to meet Dick. I don't know if he was trying to, you know, set us up or if it was just his attempt at being normal. Hey coworker, meet my family."

"'Coworker'. Is that what we're calling it these days?"

"Well I don't know. Colleague maybe? What do you call someone in the same superhero club as you?"

"Hm," Lois says, in that tone she uses when she thinks Clarke has missed something. "You talk about Bruce a lot lately."

"Do I? Well, we work together. We're a good team."

"Hm."

"We are," Clarke protests. "I told you about the robots, right? Anyway, meeting Bruce's Dick - Son - Bruce's dick named Son. Oh geez."

"Wow."

"Why can't he just go by Rick like every other guy named Richard does? Meeting Dick was nice, but I think Alfred's going to have to wait a while if he wants grandkids, if that's the plan."

"Hm. So do you think this might have been a meet the family thing?"

"Well, I don't know. I like Dick - That name, geez - but we didn't really hit it off. No sparks, you know."

Lois buries her face in her hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruce's maternal family is canonically Jewish (Unless that's been retconned out recently), and while the Waynes have never been specified the family graveyard does have a lot of Episcopalian iconography. I assume Bruce's religious identity is excessively dramatic and unnecessarily complicated, like everything else in his life.
> 
> Some parts of this chapter are inspired by tenderjock's series Hazy Cosmic Jive https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585039


	6. Chapter 6

Another late night, another parking lot. His life involves far too many scenes like this, thinks Batman. He stands in the middle of the almost empty parking lot, next to a formerly secure guard post and elevator tower leading down into the Cadmus Institute's underground isolation facility. On paper it's an ordinary research centre. But the Cadmus Institute's cover as a private biomedical think tank would be a lot more plausible if its sole project wasn't a spin-off of the Department of Defense's Project Cadmus supersoldier program. The doors to the tower are about seven yards away, leaning against some night worker's white four-door sedan. Under the parking lot's dim lights the bent doors have marks in them that look suspiciously like handprints.

The lot is nearly empty at three in the morning, but that doesn't mean Batman is alone. Robin is here, receiving the full force of Batman's glare. The rest of Robin's teammates, the so-called 'Titans', fled earlier. The only person still with Robin, standing close to him, is a girl with a near-perfect resemblance to a teenaged Clarke Kent. If the Kents would ever have let their daughter be caught dead wearing a leotard that high-cut.

Also here, in a perimeter around the parking lot, is the military. They are fighting a losing battle against a ravening horde of hungry journalists. The perimeter has been breached by Superwoman, speaking in a calm and level voice as she explains the situation to both groups.

The media is probably close enough to pick up on Batman's voice. Time to be a responsible adult. "Robin. What have I told you?"

For a supposed genius, Robin has to spend a lot of time thinking hard on his answer. The girl designated S-13 clutches his arm. Robin glances at her, then looks back up at Batman. "Um. This is exactly the kind of thing the police are supposed to handle and I should call them?"

"Yes. We'll discuss this further."

"Um." This girl seems far more hesitant than Batman can ever imagine Clarke Kent having been.

It's not easy softening your expression behind a cowl and voice distorter, but he tries his best. "Yes?"

S-13 - God fucking damn it, she needs a real name - shrinks back behind Robin. In a voice not much louder than a whisper she asks "Is he in trouble?"

"Rescuing people is part of the job."

"Oh."

Superwoman's talk to the media and army involved phrases like 'unlicenced cloning facility' and 'illegal acquisition of genetic material' and 'nonconsensual human experiments' and she sounded very calm through it all, with just a slightly off undertone to her voice. The last time he'd heard that tone coming from her, she'd followed up by backhanding him across a parking lot. Done talking now, she walks across the parking lot towards Batman and Robin and... the girl.

That lack of a name is just one of the many crimes the leadership and staff of the Cadmus Institute will answer for.

The army hangs back, watching Superwoman approach the little group. Their respect for Superwoman is tempered by a healthy dose of fear of the person they failed to kill with a targeted nuclear strike. Superwoman stops just a bit over a yard away, eyes on the girl. Knowing her the way he does, Batman can see she's trying to keep her expression calm. She swallows. "Hello."

Still trying to hide behind Robin, the girl nods once. Superwoman nods back. "I don't know what they might have told you about me. People call me Superwoman. What's your name?"

"S-13?"

"Mm. What would you like me to call you?"

The girl licks her lips. Her eyes dart from Superwoman to Robin and then Batman and back to Robin. "I don't understand. I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Superwoman's voice is calm and clear and it is obviously very much not okay. Batman thinks the Cadmus personnel should be very grateful it was the Titans who uncovered their activities, not Superwoman. Or himself. "I can explain. But maybe we should talk somewhere without so many reporters."

The girl S-13 nods again. Her body language is withdrawn, shoulders hunched, eyes down, leaning close against Robin for shelter. She completely lacks any of the confidence Clarke displays in either of her personas. Batman wonders how the researchers at Cadmus socialized her, how they expected her to function as any sort of soldier.

Superwoman glances over to the military personnel and reporters. When she speaks again she keep her voice low, pitched not to carry. "My family will be waking up soon. Would you like to meet them?"

The girl's gaze darts up to Superwoman's face. This sudden glimmer of activity and interest, this alert attention, is the first real resemblance between the two of them. "They said you don't have a family."

The older woman's face tightens to a blank mask. Batman has never seen Superwoman look so terrifyingly neutral. Face utterly level, like prairie grass bent flat under a steady wind. It might look calm if you don't know what's coming behind it. "They lied. We have a family. I can introduce you to them just as soon as it's morning."

Batman has never seen someone so clearly torn between longing and fear. "Can Robin come?"

The mask breaks. Superwoman smiles at her, a sudden smile that seems to come as a surprise to her. She glances at Robin and the smile almost becomes a grin. "Later, yes. But right now I think Batman wants to speak to him. Do you know how to fly?"

"I... think so."

"Well, I need to make sure my friends can leave without being followed. But once they're gone, I'll take you to meet your family. You can try flying with me. I won't let you fall."

That's his cue. "Robin. To the batwing."

Robin is reluctant to part from the girl. Well, no surprises there. That leotard is packed with flexible electronics and sensor patches, but it's still at least a size too small for the girl. Batman reflects that Tim will be the third teenager he's had to give the safe sex talk to, and tries not to let that fact make him feel old.

Superwoman watches the girl. The girl watches Batman and Robin climb into the batwing and strap themselves in. The canopy closes with a solid thunk-chunk as it locks. Batman starts the warm-up cycle on the engines. Safely out of earshot of the crowds around the lot, Batman turns his head to speak to Robin. "Tim. What have I told you?"

He sees Robin's reflection flinch. "Talk to you before raiding high-security complexes running illegal experiments."

"Yes. We will discuss this further." This is the second time Robin and his friends have pulled a stunt like this. He has told them all that they need support for these sort of operations, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in. What sort of self-destructive maniac raids a secure compound without adequate backup?

 _Don't answer that_ , Batman tells himself.

In the reflections across the canopy, Batman sees Robin lean over to look down at Superwoman and her... Clone, yes. Sister? Daughter?

"So, you have Superwoman's phone number, right? Do you think I could call her sometime? I mean, not Superwoman obviously. Her."

Goddamn teenagers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it turns out isolation and boredom are absolute death on my writing productivity! Thanks for the learning opportunity, coronavirus! /s
> 
> All right, I'm going to get back into more productive habits. This will be going on for a while, so there's no point in not using the time to get more writing done.


	7. Chapter 7

"Please enjoy the evening, and thanks for coming to my Ted Talk."

Ted Kord's speeches all end on that same joke, and it never gets more than the same groans and polite applause. Clarke Kent doesn't know why he keeps trying. He's smarter than Bruce, but you wouldn't know it by his sense of humour.

Another night, another fundraising gala. Clarke's access to Bruce Wayne translates to access to these events, and she's getting a reputation for her articles on behind-the-scenes international financial relations. She prefers working with people in their neighbourhoods, where they live, but there's no question that the high level financial deals have immediate impacts on those homes. Clarke finishes her applause and moves in to work the chattering crowd.

The crowd tonight is business and finance types, mostly in expensive clothes carefully chosen to look respectful of the event but not too formal. A few high end sales types with haircuts that cost more than Clarke's new shoes. None of them are what brought her here tonight. Of actual interest to both Clarke Kent of the Daily Planet and Superwoman of the Justice League are the two senators from Illinois who have shown up to this East Coast fundraiser.

Theodore Stephen "Ted" Kord took a loan from his father to start a battery manufacturing firm. Later he took over the R&D department at Kord Industries and patented a couple of innovative methods to cut costs on electric motor production. Over the past seven years under his control Kord Industries has become one of the most profitable electric vehicle companies in the world. And Ted is an effective superhero in his own right, even if no one is willing to take him seriously. But there's no reason for both of Illinois's senators to be here tonight.

The two senators take to the corners of the ballroom, along the north wall, instead of spreading out and working the crowd. They're both surrounded by small groups of hangers-on and waitstaff, but make no attempts to approach one another from their respective corners. Clarke watches as Bruce and Ted Kord both make their way over and decides to stay back for now. She wants to watch the senators without being seen.

For that she needs camouflage, and a piece of social shrubbery is fast approaching her. Male, white, middle aged, dressed in an expensive but bland dark suit, wedding band, slightly red in the face and breath smelling of gin and bitters. At least two drinks in already and more interested in Clarke's not all that low neckline than her face. Perfect. Smiling politely Clarke maneuovres the man so she can look past his shoulders towards the senatorial clusters. They exchange a few pleasantries about the evening, the ballroom's view over the city, and Clarke draws it out of the man that he's the North American VP in sales with Obsidian North. She follows that up with a question about Kord Industries beating ON for a pentagon contract to supply lithium-air electrochemical cells. The executive allows that yes there is a business rivalry here but the focus tonight is on raising funds for STEM educational initiatives and business is secondary to that cause. Through it all she watches the senators at their opposite sides of the room.

However much cloak and dagger they're trying to apply here, the senators aren't subtle. There are two waitstaff who hover at the edges of the crowds around the senators, take orders and fetch drinks for the groups, and consistently move back and forth between the crowds. And they're not security. Clarke has a lot of experience at spotting security.

Clarke's companion tries some not very subtle questions about if she's working alone tonight and when she'll be done. Clarke brushes them aside and follows up with a question about Obsidian North's latest attempt at the electric vehicle market, the family sedan with the unfortunate brakes problem. The man's gaze drifts away from her collarbone and he smiles tightly and says he'll send her the company's press releases about the matter but right now he needs to talk to Mr Kord. Clarke smiles and watches as he walks away towards the opposite end of the room from Kord.

Bruce Wayne is moving away from the crowd, doing that thing where it looks as though he's drifting aimlessly from one boring conversation to the next while steadily making his way to the exit. In this case the ballroom's south patio.

Time for her to make her own exit. She does need to speak to Bruce professionally. Before she goes she takes a couple of pictures of the ballroom, making sure to catch the two waitstaff she's interested in. She also has access to the pictures taken by the official event photographers. It'll be easy enough to find which companies are catering this event, and from there to start digging in to who these two 'waitstaff' really are.

Outdoors is a bit cooler than the ballroom but not by much. The south patio offers a spectacular view of hypersector's towers reflecting the warm glow of the urban night. Arranged as a series of terraces it also offers a certain degree of privacy. Mr I Am The Night has found a quiet corner where he can look between towers to the bay south of Metropolis. He almost blends into the background, dressed in another of his muted grey and black suits. As usual the suit is carefully tailored to draw attention to his height rather than his bulk.

He doesn't move as she approaches, but she knows he has noticed her. She leans on the wall next to Bruce and looks out towards the bay. "Mr Wayne, good to see you again. Any comment on your planned purchase of Tyler Pharmaceuticals?"

That gets a reaction, a tight grimace and squaring of shoulders. "Ms Kent. Care to explain how the Planet knows about that?"

"You can hide behind non-disclosure agreements and confidential agreements, but you can't hide from one of your negotiators getting blind drunk in a Midtown hole in the wall bar."

Bruce winces. "Seriously?" He looks back towards the ballroom as though the snitch might be in the crowd tonight. "Which one?"

"The one who spent the night in the drunk tank a couple of days ago. Poor guy tried to match me drink for drink."

"God damn it." Bruce says it without any real anger. "Give me a couple of hours. I'll send you a statement."

"CC Ron Troupe on that. This sort of thing is his beat."

"Right." Bruce snorts. "Trying to pick up women by bragging about corporate secrets."

"In his defence, I do have great legs."

Bruce snorts again. Instead of arguing the point he changes the subject to work. "How solid is your source on Senators Johnstone and Williams?"

"They've always been reliable in the past. And those two are doing a terrible job of playing innocent. I spotted a couple of people in server uniforms playing telephone between the two of them. Got pictures of them both. I'll send them to you."

Bruce makes a _hm_ noise. After six years of working with him she recognizes it as both a thank you and a gesture of respect. If he had any doubts about her observations he would follow up with questions. "How's Connelly?"

"Good." Looking out into the night air, Clarke grins. "More than good. She's learning how to fit in at school. And she was really happy to hear Tim would be in town tonight."

"You know our kids are back at your place necking right now."

"I seriously doubt that's all they're doing." Tim and Connelly. Another layer of awkward on top of the many-layered cake of awkwardness that is Clarke and Bruce.

Officially Connelly is Clarke's niece, the daughter of Clarke's birth-sister. How Clarke had come to be adopted in Kansas while her parents raised her older sister in Metropolis is exactly the sort of melodrama that Bruce would come up with. But despite eventually reuniting with her sister Kayla, Clarke never met her birth parents, since both died in a car crash when she was twelve and Kayla fifteen. Clarke's sister had died of a stroke a few months ago, and now Connelly's documentation includes an in-family adoption.

Clarke finds the whole story to be a bit morbid, but Connelly seems to like it. Then again, Cadmus socialized that girl with a diet of Hallmark, Disney, and Lifetime Movies.

"Wow," a voice interrupts before either of them can talk. Ted Kord approaches, looking around the area to see who might be in earshot. "That was an interesting scene."

"The senators?" Clarke nods at Kord. Still looking out over the city, Bruce sort of glances in Kord's direction. "They're your guests. Did they let anything slip around you?"

Kord shrugs. "Both their offices requested invitations. And I haven't been able to get any information out of the two of them tonight. Not yet, anyway."

"Interesting," Bruce says in a flat voice. Normally Bruce is all over this sort of thing, but Clarke gets the distinct impression he doesn't want Kord here right now.

"Yeah." Kord shrugs again. "I'll try again with both of them. I don't know if this is business, politics, or what. But you've both got, you know, connections. So it might be something they want to hear about."

Ted Kord is on friendly terms with both of them, but he doesn't know about their alternate identities. As the Blue Beetle he knows that Wayne and Kent are trusted sources for the League.

"I'll keep digging on my own," Clarke tells him. "If I come up with anything interesting I'll pass it on."

Kord nods and grins that goofball grin of his. Then he squares his shoulders and puts his fists on his hips, and in a cartoonish heroic voice says, "Thank you for your assistance, citizens."

Bruce shakes his head as he watches Kord walk away. "He wonders why no one takes him seriously."

"Nah, he knows. But he also knows that people are a lot happier to cooperate with Blue Beetle than they are with the Batman."

"Maybe." Bruce pulls off his suit jacket and lays it on the low wall around the patio. He rolls his shirtsleeves up and leans forward on the wall. Clarke leans on the wall, next to Bruce. Close enough to feel a bit of warmth through his shirt. Close enough to catch a bit of his scent, warm skin and clean hair. Just a hint of clean sweat, the smell that makes her want to burrow her face into his shoulder and stay there.

Took Clarke long enough to figure it out. Lois is right. She is incredibly dense about some things. Mom is right. She does have a type, and that type runs to extremes.

It's a beautiful view of Metropolis's hypersector and it's gleaming towers, and of the bay beyond. Hypersector's glass and steel postmodern architecture looks like a dream of the future stretching up towards the night sky, and it's tempting to forget the human cost of driving an entire neighbourhood out of their homes and small businesses and turning the real estate over to wealthy tech companies. The hypersector development was one of the major causes of current overcrowding in southside Hob's Bay.

Bruce breaks the silence. "I bought a suite on Sullivan Street. Penthouse."

"Uh huh." She'd missed that. Well, even she can only drink one source under the table at a time, at least not without blowing her secret wide open. "I told you before, you're not buying a place for me and Connelly. Especially not a place like that." A penthouse in Metropolis's Museum District. Typical Bruce. "If I move to a place bought for me by Bruce Wayne, my credibility as a journalist is shot."

"There are already rumours about us. Or do you think your colleagues haven't noticed that we spend a surprising amount of time alone at these events?"

"I can live with rumours." There are even more rumours about Batman and Superwoman. Well, maybe her carrying him to crisis sites isn't the most dignified way to travel, but it is fast.

Stepping back from the wall, Clarke turns to face Bruce. He stands as well, still looking out towards the towers.

"I was planning on saying this later, but this... " Bruce gestures back towards the party. "This is familiar."

"We've been guests at lots of fundraisers, in both of our jobs."

"I was thinking of that first one." The city ambience and the interior lights from the party give the scene a twilight glow. "I'm not good at words. A lot of what I do is because I'm not good at words. But I'm sorry, Clarke. For... "

Is he finally going to say it? Clarke steps closer so she can watch his face as he speaks. If Bruce Wayne is finally going to say what's on his mind, this is something she wants to remember. This painful inability to express himself in words isn't a result of trauma, she knows from both Dick and Alfred. It's just Bruce. He gets it from both sides of his family.

"For attacking you. For not seeing through Luthor. For looking at you and seeing something to blame, instead of a person. For everything."

For a second Clarke just takes it in. Bruce in another of his overpriced suits, chin up, shoulders back, body language clamped down tight. If you know how to read Bruce, he's practically shaking in his boots. Over the past six years she has gotten very good at reading him.

"Bruce, I forgave you years ago. But hearing you say it... " Is like watching someone have a tooth pulled. Not as cathartic as she expected, and she realizes her own need for that catharsis passed a long time ago. She puts her hand out and grips his arm. "This means a lot to me. Thank you. And in case it hasn't sunk in, I do forgive you."

Still rigid, looking straight ahead. "I'm not sure I - "

"You keep blaming yourself for what Luthor and Doomsday did, and I will kick your ass again."

He exhales slowly and looks at her. "You know how I am with blame. Let me get the armour on first."

Clarke hears the footsteps first, Bruce perhaps half a second later. She has just enough time to realize she's leaning in towards Bruce, hand on his arm, and Bruce is gazing down at her face, and this is so not a professional position.

" _Oh_. Sorry."

Kord. Of course. Clarke and Bruce both turn to face him. In his right hand Ted Kord has a drink. In his left he carries what looks suspiciously like a compact audio recorder, the sort you might keep shoved in a pocket while talking to unsuspecting politicians. He meets their gazes for a second, then looks back towards the party. "Uh. Maybe I'll come back."

Their host makes an awkward retreat. Bruce grumbles under his breath, and lets out a short huff. "There's a crowd here. Maybe we should finish this conversation later."

Clarke silently curses Ted Kord all the way back to the ballroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endings are HARD. I have one more short chapter to finish for this story, and then I can go back to my normal series (Serieses?).


	8. Chapter 8

Clarke finds out about it when they get back to her place, where the kids are sitting conspicuously far apart on her tiny couch. The first words out of Tim's mouth are to ask if Bruce has told her yet.

The place on Sullivan Street isn't for Clarke and Connelly. The place on Sullivan Street is for him.

It's all very reasonable. A hospital for the Justice League. Bruce Wayne bought a place in Metropolis weeks ago. It just makes sense to turn his restored manor into a refuge for the League and its allies. Most of Wayne's deals are done through financial institutions in Metropolis anyway, it's a practical matter for him to move.

Gotham healed years ago, Bruce says. It's time for him to stop trying to micromanage the Wayne Foundation's work.

He doesn't mention that Batman already spends most of his time with the League these days. Gotham healed years ago. The Dark Knight moved on.

"Ah." Clarke says.

Bruce's hand is jammed deep in his jacket pocket. He glances over at the kids on the couch and brings his hand out empty. "I've spent the past week trying to decide how to... tell you."

"He wrote notes," Tim interrupts. He sinks down deeper into the couch under the weight of Bruce's stare.

Bruce turns back to Clarke. "Obviously it's a practical decision."

"Obviously."

"With regards to journalistic integrity, there are... " Bruce trails off. Watching him from the couch, Connelly's eyes go wide and she mouths 'What?' Bruce takes a deep breath. "Your career is, not something I'd want to, we can of course."

His face is flat and his eyes almost glassy. It's the same expression from the barbeque, when he realized she'd caught him (And Dick, for God's sake. Like father like son) staring at her butt. Clarke thinks her own expression is probably a little flat. Bruce is _moving_? To _Metropolis_? The Museum District is just over two miles from her place. That's walking distance.

"Well." She manages. "That sounds."

"Well." Bruce replies. He sticks his hand back in his jacket pocket.

Watching them, the kids twist their faces into expressions of disdain and disbelief. There is eye-rolling.

"Of course there's more to discuss," Bruce says, a little more smoothly than before. He seems to have most of his composure back. "But it can wait until later."

Then he pulls his hand out of his pocket again and drops the ring box on the floor.


End file.
